The iMac on Jean Matuszewski’s desk got a workout last month. Jean (pictured below with a group of her students) is the Reading Teacher at Hughes Elementary School and she works to improve the reading skills of K-2 students who need a little extra help. In the past her students wrote their own animal guessing game book modeled on a book they read in her class entitled "What Am I?" Each first grader would choose a different animal and give at least three clues to help the listener guess the animal. This year Jean decided to introduce video technology into her reading class and record the students reading their clues on the computer. The idea came after attending Mike Amante’s class on “Quick and Easy Video Projects with Photo Booth.” This small software program comes on the iMacs and uses a built-in camera and microphone to take photos and short videos. Jean saw the possibilities and designed a presentation for her students. Jean said, “I found large, colorful, animal photographs using Google image search and I planned to show a photograph of the child with the animal for the answer page using the special effects that Photo Booth offers.” With some technical assistance and another workshop, this time with Tim Ferguson on iMovie, Jean decided to take the Photo Booth video concept a step further and record her students directly in iMovie. She gave it a trial run and with the help of Dan Powers, one of the tech support staff, tried the new version of iMovie only available on the iMacs and it worked great. Jean explained, “I had the children read and reread their parts to increase their fluency and expression before going on camera. Although recording 31 students reading individually, was a big job, the results were worth it.” First graders learned information about animals and they loved seeing each other on camera. The second graders did a group reading on kindness, our virtue of the month, and then they individually read a page from The Kindest Family while on camera. All the students got to see themselves as readers, their parents enjoyed watching the movie during Open House at Hughes and Jean encouraged their enthusiasm and interest in reading with the use of the computer. A few of these excellent videos can be seen here. To learn how to do this kind of project, Jean recommends attending workshops, asking questions & learning about the software available. Then you can choose the application that is right for your project!

One of the nicest but often underutilized organizational tools in Mac OS X that has been around in the last few versions of the OS is color file labels. Color labels are color tags that you can apply to folders, applications, and documents to makes them easier to identify. Besides that simple use, color label can be used in a variety of ways to make your file management tasks even easier in Mac OS X. Here are some simple tips for working with and maximizing the use of color labels in your Mac OS X computing experience.

ASSIGN A LABEL
Assigning a label to a file or folder can be done in several ways. One way is while in the Finder, single-click to select the icon of the file or folder that you wish to label. Then, from the File menu, select your preferred color. Alternatively, you can also right-click or Control-click the icon, and select the color you wish to use. Lastly, you can also select a file and then choose to "Get Info" (highlight the file, then press Command + I) and then selecting a color from the label section. The name of a labeled icon will be tinted with the color that you choose, making it easier to spot among several files with no label.

REMOVE A LABEL
To remove the color label from an item, follow any of the steps for assigning a label, but select the x instead of a color.

SORT USING LABELS
To use color labels to sort items in a folder, first open the folder as a Finder window, and then from the View menu, select as Icons. Then, from the View menu, select Arrange and then by Label. The icons with color labels will appear grouped together within the open folder window.

CHANGING LABEL NAMES
While you cannot change the colors of the labels themselves, you can change the label names to be something more descriptive than Red, Orange, or Yellow, for example. Changing the names to indicate what each color represents will help you apply the correct color the next time you apply a label color. To change the label’s names, open the Finder to your Home folder then choose Finder > Preferences > Labels.
Finally, click inside the label names boxes and type in a new name of your choice for each color!

SEARCH BY LABEL
Besides the visual benefits, you can even search for files by their color! To do this, open a new Finder window and press Command + F. In the "kind" drop-down box, select "other" then find "File Label" in the list. Click it, then click "OK." All files that have that color label assigned will neatly appear in the window as they are located!

MASS ASSIGNING LABELS
To assign a color label to several items at once, first open a Finder window where you can see the files and then put this window into List view. Select any files you want to label. (To select a list, you can click on the first one and then hold Shift to click on the last one. You can also Command-click on files to make non-contiguous selections.) Next, click on the Gear icon and choose the color label you want to assign to the files. The color label will now be assign to the files or folders en masse.

Teachers Network is a non-profit organization—by teachers, for teachers—based out of New York City with a 26-year track record of success, dedicated to improving student learning in public schools nationally and internationally. Teachers Network is unique in its focus on professional development as the key to improving student achievement. Using the power of an award-winning web site, as well as videos and print resources, Teachers Network leverages the creativity and expertise of a national and international community of outstanding educators to transform public schools into creative learning communities. Over the years, Teachers Network has directly impacted over 1.5 million teachers and nearly 40 million students. Their web portal, located online at teachersnetwork.org, offers a host of unique resources that are worth exploration by the classroom teacher. For example, whether you are a new or veteran educator, you can come to teachersnetwork.org with your students every day, Monday through Friday, throughout the school year, for a Daily Classroom Special. Proudly brought to you by their web mentors, the Daily Classroom Specials will give you ideas for short-term projects to use in your classroom, opportunities to join forces with other classrooms in ongoing projects, ideas for community service learning, and advice for working with parents. In addition to their Daily Specials, Teachers Network also has a large library of comprehensive Lesson Plans have been designed by teachers, for teachers for use in the classroom. There is a large subject index that make it easy to search a wealth of curriculum materials that you can use right away! These lesson plan units are also organized according to grade levels to make it even easier to find exactly what you are looking for.

In addition to their extensive Lesson Plan library, the site also features a large collection of How-To articles and other resources to help new as well as experienced teachers. These How-Tos not help you get more from within the classroom but how to grow as a professional as well. For new teachers, the Teacher Network offers New Teachers Online, a special collection of resources designed to help get acquainted with the teaching profession and get answers to common questions from experienced teachers. The site is maintained by ten experienced classroom teachers who are serve as "web mentors" and share their invaluable experience through the website. With a such a varied and useful collection of resources, the Teacher Network site is worth visiting and exploring to see what you use in your classroom. Check out the site today or just use some of the QuickLinks above to go see some key areas of this website today!

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Eager to learn about new ways to use Mac OS X even better? Come to our monthly OS X "Talk, Tips & Tricks" session. Find out more.

Below are select technology courses to be offered by the Teacher Center this month. To learn more, log onto My Learning Plan then click the links below for more details about each class and/or to sign up right now online!

Monday, April 6
Mac OS X "Tech Talk, Tips, and Tricks" - April 2009

Tuesday, April 7
Digital Cameras - Care and Use

Tuesday, April 21
School Year Digital Scrapbook

Tuesday, April 28
Your Classroom Webpage

Wednesday, April 29
Spring Into Spring with Brain Pop 2009

iCal Users
Download April Events

Here are ten simple things educators can do on the web this month. Perhaps these can be springboards for a lesson or even some new "lifelong learning" for you, they are all related to events and traditions of the month known for love. Take a look and see what you can pick up & share with your students!

1. Learn about the Grand Central Station from PBS American Experience Online
2. Spring into Poetry with your students
3. Spring Watch USA from Animal Planet
4. Look at: “____ will ____ you” with your students and encourage them to leave their statement.
5. Look at CNN Student News. (Subscribe to video podcasts via iTunes)
6. Share a TED Talk: Richard Baraniuk: Goodbye, textbooks; hello, open-source learning
7. Look at the Top 100 April Fools Day Hoaxes of all time
8. Download an Earth day activity book for your students
9. Have your students complete an April Facts Internet Hunt
10. Create a word Cloud with your students